What Will We Do Now?
by RockSunner
Summary: This is a sequel to What Else Can I Do? and What Else Can I Do Now?, an AU in which Klaus and Sunny must carry on the fight against the villains alone. Spoilers for TPP.
1. What Now?

This is a sequel to "What Else Can I Do?" and "What Else Can I Do Now?", set in an alternate universe in which Violet was harpooned instead of Dewey Denouement. All characters belong to Daniel Handler, not me.

* * *

**What Will We Do Now?**

The poet John Donne once wrote, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

_Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!_ tolled the bell of the Hotel Denouement clock.

Sunny and Klaus felt diminished, and not by the death of just "any man," but by the death of a sister who was dear to them. They were riding down in an elevator with Dewey Denouement, the man their sister Violet had given her life to save, but they would far rather have had Violet back and let the bell toll for Dewey instead.

"We're managed to destroy Olaf, at least," said Klaus with a sigh, "Though he really destroyed himself by his own ignorance of gravity."

Olaf had tried to launch his boat from the roof of the nine-story building. Had Violet been there, she might have suggested an invention to slow his fall. Because Olaf had harpooned Violet early that morning, he suffered a fatal plummet instead. Her death had also diminished him.

"What do now?" asked Sunny.

"I still want to stop the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard," said Klaus. "Their scheming led to this whole situation. They're just as responsible for Violet's death as Olaf was."

"The best thing to do," Dewey said, "Is to lie low in the underwater catalog building until it's safe. Very few people know of it; even my brothers Frank and Ernest don't. I only shared the secret with Kit and with you."

"I'd very much like to use the resources of the catalog against our enemies," said Klaus. "But not to hide."

"How?" asked Sunny.

"Just like we did Olaf. We need to figure out what the two crooked Justices want and how to thwart them," said Klaus.

"Mushrooms," suggested Sunny.

"That's a good point," said Dewey. "They know Olaf went up to get the poison mushrooms and they must have heard the crash. They may decide to look for the Medusoid Mycelium near the wreckage of Olaf's boat."

"That's where you said you dropped the helmet with the Medusoid Mycelium, right Sunny?" Klaus asked. "Into the ocean."

"Lied," said Sunny. "Funnel."

"You dropped the helmet into the funnel that leads to the laundry room?" asked Klaus. "That's not so good. Olaf jammed the Vernacularly Fastened Door when he tried to enter the passwords. He was no better at spelling than he was at physics."

"Sugar bowl?" asked Sunny.

"That's right, the sugar bowl is in there, too," said Klaus. "I hope the diving helmet didn't land on it."

"Actually," said Dewey, "The sugar bowl isn't in there. The lock was just a ruse to make the villains think it was."

"But what about the Mycelium?" asked Klaus. "We can't just leave it in there for the villains to find. And now the lock is jammed for twenty-four hours."

"It's my lock," said Dewey, "Kit modified it especially for me and I know how to unjam it."

The elevator had reached the basement, which was still empty. Apparently none of the blindfolded people searching the hotel for the Baudelaires had thought to come down here yet.

Dewey walked to the door of Room 025 with gawky strides of his long, oddly-bent legs. He pressed his fingers to the sides of the lock around the door-knob and it hummed to life again.

"There, now all we have to do is type in the password phrases correctly," he said. He was just about to do this when they heard the chime of the elevator.

They quickly ducked into the room across the hall, Room 024, which is an unassigned code in the Dewey Decimal system and therefore an empty room in the Hotel Denouement.

"I don't think we should come down here now," said a hoarse voice. "We need to stay up there and misdirect people."

"We have to find out if Olaf got the sugar bowl," said a deep, deep voice. "I couldn't tell if he was holding it behind his back or not."

The two people, known to the Baudelaires by their voices as the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard, approached the laundry-room door.

"It's still locked," said the man with a beard and no hair in disgust. "Olaf must have forgotten the phrases and funked it."

"Lucky for us that we sneaked Olaf out of the closet last night, got him drunk, and tricked him into telling us the phrases," said the woman with hair and no beard. She expertly typed them in and the door swung open. Both of them rushed into the room.

"Medusoid Mycelium!" the villainous man cried, "Olaf's diving helmet has cracked open and spores have escaped!"

"It grows in damp, enclosed places, like a damp, steamy laundry room!" said the evil woman. "Let's get out of here!"

But before they could do that, Klaus rushed across the hall and slammed the door shut. He pushed the Vernacularly Fastened Door device back onto the doorknob to relock it, and then typed incorrect letters to jam the lock.

The villainous pair pounded on the door. "Let us out!" shouted the woman with hair and no beard. There was a bit of a cough in her deep, deep voice.

"The door is jammed for 24 hours," Klaus called to them. "I know you have a small bottle of horseradish, but is it enough for both of you for that long?"

There was the sound of a scuffle behind the door, and then the man with a beard but no hair yelled at the woman, "You fool! You've broken the bottle!" There was a cough in his voice also.

Dewey and the two Baudelaires headed to Room 020, Library Science, where the secret passage to the underwater catalog was hidden.

"Ruth less," said Sunny, wondering if they were getting to be more like villains themselves with each new desperate act.

"It's only justice," said Klaus.

"Any man's death diminishes me," said Dewey. "But those two diminish me considerably less than some I could name."

"Violet," Sunny said sadly.

They entered the underwater catalog, a hotel-sized building beneath the pond filled with all the evidence Dewey had gathered as his life's work.

"Every room is full of filing cabinets of V.F.D. secrets and evidence, all organized by the Dewey decimal system," Dewey Denouement said proudly.

Klaus rubbed his hands together, his eyes shining. "I know what we do now," he said. "Read!" 


	2. Dispatches

**Chapter 2**

"Wonderful, Klaus," Dewey Denouement said. "Your research skills are going to be an immense help."

"Moi?" asked Sunny.

"Your cooking skills will too, Sunny," said Dewey. "I have a cache of food here for emergencies."

"Where to start?" said Klaus, looking around eagerly.

"I would suggest we get the most current information we can first," said Dewey. "There's a telegraph machine in Room 384, telecommunication."

"That sounds good," said Klaus. "We can work back over older files in the light of the latest information."

The underwater catalog was like the reflection the children had seen in the pond of the above-water LETOH TNEMEUONED. That is, it was the hotel turned sideways. Shuttered windows faced up to the pond's surface and down into the pond's bottom. The doors were underfoot and overhead. Instead of an elevator, they seated themselves in a people-mover which took them to the "third floor."

Room 384 was an upward-facing room. Dewey reached up, opened the door, and pulled down stairs for them to climb in.

"I see a new Volunteer Factual Dispatch has arrived," said Dewey, tearing it off the machine. "Received Vermiform Food Denunciation at breakfast this morning from a reliable Italian waiter. Stop. The letter was K. Stop. Be on guard. Stop. L.S. CC: J.S."

"Expound," said Sunny.

"Yes," said Klaus. "What in the world is a Vermiform Food Denunciation?"

"This is terrible," said Dewey. "I don't believe it. A Vermiform Food Denunciation is breakfast sausages arranged into an initial, and it's for denouncing volunteers who have been discovered as traitors. There's only one K. in the V.F.D. right now: Kit!"

"Do you think Kit could be a traitor?" Klaus asked.

"Absolutely not!" said Dewey. "I know her better than anyone; I love her. There must be some mistake."

"Kit didn't tell us much when she gave us the mission as flaneurs at the hotel," Klaus said. "But she seemed very distressed. She said our mission would fail and that all the hopes of the V.F.D. would go up in smoke."

"Where Kit now?" Sunny asked.

"She went to join Captain Widdershins on a mission," said Dewey. I have his dispatch right here. I haven't had time to file it."

Dewey handed the dispatch to Klaus, who read, "After I dropped off Baudelaires as planned, discovered desperate situation at sea. Aye! Stop. Deus Ex Machina being attacked by submarine as well as eagles. Aye! Stop. Need your inside knowledge of Octopus submarine design to fight it. Aye! Stop. Have left rubber raft with outboard motor and water skis for you at Mediocre Barrier Reef. Meet me at Sargasso Swatch Sea. Aye! Stop. CW CC: J.S."

"That's supposed to be from Captain Widdershins?" Klaus asked.

"Yes," said Dewey. "What's wrong with it?"

"No drop off," said Sunny.

"That's right," Klaus said. "Captain Widdershins didn't drop us off anywhere. He disappeared while we were in the Gorgonian Grotto looking for the sugar bowl."

"What?" said Dewey. "Kit and I thought he was going to drop you off at Briny Beach. She picked you up there in her taxi."

"We drove ourselves there in the Queequeg," said Klaus. "After we escaped from Count Olaf."

"Why didn't you tell Kit that?" asked Dewey.

"She never asked us," said Klaus. "She was in such a hurry and we had so many questions for her that it never occurred to us."

"Incomplete information!" cried Dewey. "Smoke and mirrors! An impostor must have written that dispatch. Maybe they also planted false rumors that Kit's a traitor. Kit's in trouble and we've got to help her."

"How get?" asked Sunny, meaning "How can we get to her?"

"We can use the Kit," said Dewey. "My bathyscaphe."


	3. Dogs

**Chapter 3**

"Bath escape?" asked Sunny, meaning "What does avoiding being washed have to do with anything?"

"A bathyscaphe is a self-propelled vessel for underwater exploration," said Klaus, remembering this from a book on oceanography.

"That's right," said Dewey. "It's a bit like a submarine except you have to dump out lead pellets in order to ascend from a dive. I use it for repairs on the underwater catalog. Kit designed it for me."

"Can we get it out to sea without being spotted?" Klaus asked.

"Yes, there's a secret tunnel under the hotel from the pond to the sea," Dewey said.

Just then, another telegram came in. Dewey took it. "This one is a Verse Fluctuation Declaration," he said.

"_My Last Albatross_, by Q. Browning

...I gave orders;  
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands  
As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll greet  
The company below, then...  
Though his fair daughter's person, as I avowed  
In starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go  
Together down, Sir! Notice Pluto, though,  
Taming a race-horse, thought a rarity,  
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me."

"Do you know the original verse?" Klaus asked. "I can read the first two words because I read an example in a book recently. Duchess R."

"Very good," said Dewey. "It reads, 'Duchess R. commands: meet self at Neptune Sea'. This will work out well; it's on our way. Besides, she's highly skilled at diving and seafaring missions."

Dewey led the way from the telegraph room to the "top" room of the hotel. "The Kit is docked in what would be the swimming pool of the sunbathing salon," he said. "There's an airlock that will let us into it."

On the way they picked up some provisions: bread, swiss cheese, and bottled water. "Sunny, would you make sandwiches for us? I know you've had nothing to eat since that brunch yesterday."

"Monte Cristo," said Sunny, which meant "I'd like to make you fancy battered sandwiches, but I realize you might not have all the ingredients and equipment."

"The submarine doesn't have much in the way of cooking facilities, though there is a small hot-plate," said Dewey.

"Toastedcheese," suggested Sunny. She started making toasted cheese sandwiches as soon as they boarded.

As they set out to sea, Klaus asked, "There's something Count Olaf said to us last night, Dewey, that I meant to ask you about, but the terrible thing that happened after that drove it from my mind."

Sunny nodded. "Mama and Papa. Poison darts."

Dewey blushed, as he had when Olaf had mentioned the subject.

"It really doesn't matter, now that Olaf is dead, does it?" Dewey asked. "We should let sleeping dogs lie."

"Let sleeping dogs lie" is a phrase which here means, "Don't stir up trouble by inquiring into a matter that is best forgotten," but in my experience it depends on what the dogs are lying in front of whether one must disturb them or not. I once had to disturb a dog that was lying on a trapdoor to an important dungeon. In this case, the "dogs" were lying in the way to Klaus' and Sunny's peace of mind.

"Please, we have to know about our parents," said Klaus.

"The fact is, your parents murdered Olaf's parents and stole their fortune from him," said Dewey. "It was in a good cause of course, and they've used the money it to support V.F.D. research as well as supporting you children. But I've always felt a bit embarrassed by it."

Klaus and Sunny turned white.

"A bit embarrassed?" Klaus gasped. "That's all you feel about our parents being murderers?"

"Kit helped?" Sunny asked, thinking of how Kit had told them of bringing them poison darts at the theater.

"She did, but that was for my sake," said Dewey. "She was quite young at the time and already a good friend of mine. She was helping me to revenge the death of my parents on Olaf."

The two Baudelaires fell silent. All their assumptions about the nobility of their parents and the nobility of the V.F.D. were shaken. They wished they had let sleeping dogs lie, but they wished more than anything that Violet were with them to help them face these new "dogs," the worries that hounded them. 


	4. Duchess

**Chapter 4**

Dewey navigated the bathyscaphe and pointed out undersea sights which normally would have fascinated Klaus and Sunny, but they were still pondering the terrible truth they had learned about their parents.

"The Sargasso Swatch is a large clump of seaweed in the middle of the Neptune Sea," said Dewey. "There's a V.F.D. rendezvous diving platform to the south of it. We're almost there."

Suddenly, there was a knock at one of the portholes and a woman in a diving suit waved to them.

"That must be the Duchess now!" said Dewey. He went to the airlock and let her in.

"I saw you coming and I couldn't wait," said the Duchess briskly.

"Welcome, Your Grace," said Dewey. "These are Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. Children, this is the Duchess of Winnipeg."

"Call me R," said the Duchess. "I know we've only just met, but I've heard so much about you that I feel you are all my friends."

"Pleased to meet you, R," said Klaus.

"Too," said Sunny.

"I've seen pictures of you in the newspaper," said Dewey, "And I must say that's an excellent disguise."

"I'm disguised as the youngest Snicket sibling disguised as me," said the Duchess proudly. "By the way, I have disturbing news to report. There's a water-ski with the V.F.D. eye symbol floating in the water near the diving platform. A volunteer who came here by water-skis may have met with foul play."

"Oh no! That's what Kit was going to do. What could have happened to her?" cried Dewey. "She was supposed to meet Captain Widdershins here and help with a mission against the Octopus submarine, though it may have been a message from an impostor."

"Now Carmelita," said Sunny, remembering that Count Olaf had rechristened the stolen submarine.

"Maybe not any more," said Klaus, "Count Olaf said Fernald and Fiona stole it from him, so they may have renamed it again."

"What's happening with Count Olaf and the trial?" asked the Duchess. "I've been out at sea and haven't heard the latest.

"He was killed," said Dewey.

"Oh really?" said R. "That's good news. Who killed him?"

"I did," said Klaus. "I pushed him off a building in a boat."

"Self defense," said Sunny.

"Very good," said the Duchess. "One less enemy the V.F.D. has to worry about, though the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard are far more dangerous."

"There's a good chance they're dead, too," said Klaus. "I locked them in room with the Medusoid Mycelium."

"My, my," said the Duchess. "You're proving a very capable V.F.D. agent. Your parents would be proud."

Klaus and Sunny shuddered. Life was getting a bit too morally ambiguous.

"But what about Kit?" asked Dewey. "How are we going to find her? She's in no condition to fight villains."

"I have a hunch," said Klaus. "The self-sustaining hot-air mobile home is under attack by eagles. Quigley was going to net them using a helicopter."

"That's right," said Dewey. "Kit and I plotted Quigley's course together. But how does that help?"

"The impostor's telegram mentioned the attack. Suppose the impostor was actually on the other side, wanting the Deus Ex Machina brought down. After capturing Kit they might have returned to that fight."

"Long shot," said Sunny.

"Even if they didn't," said Klaus, "The people running the eagle attack may know something about who has Kit and where they went."

"I'm convinced," said the Duchess. "That's probably our best chance. Dewey, set a course to find the Deus Ex Machina." 


	5. Eagles

**Chapter 5**

Some people say, Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," but I say that having both friends and enemies in close proximity is far too dangerous for the friends. Instead I keep far from both friends and enemies, only tracking them at a distance. The Baudelaires, Dewey, and Duchess R were pursuing the more dangerous policy.

"We should be close," Dewey told the others after a few hours of underwater sailing. "Unfortunately, the bathysphere can only surface once. If we aren't close enough to our enemies we'll have to go forward on the surface and we'll lose the advantage of surprise. Shall I go ahead?"

"Once?" Sunny asked.

"The Kit isn't like a submarine; it can't surface and submerge over and over," Dewey said. "Above us are floatation tanks filled with gasoline, which is lighter than water and also serves as fuel. Below us are submersion tanks. We filled some of them with water to make us heavy enough to stay under. To come up we jettison lead ballast, but we can only do that once. If we submerged again without taking on more ballast we'd be stuck."

"Violet would have loved this," said Klaus with a sigh.

"Go ahead and take us up, Dewey," said the Duchess.

The first thing they saw when they surfaced was not a close enemy, but a close friend. A helicopter was hovering overhead, and when the Baudelaires emerged from the hatch the pilot called down to them, "Ahoy there, Baudelaires!"

"Quigley Quagmire!" yelled Klaus. "It's good to see you!"

"Just a second, I'll lower a ladder so you can climb up," said Quigley.

Klaus and Sunny were both excellent climbers after their adventures in elevators and on slippery slopes. They scaled the ladder and hugged Quigley.

"Where's Violet?" Quigley asked.

Klaus gulped. "I'm afraid I have some bad news... Violet is dead. Olaf murdered her with a harpoon gun."

"No!" Quigley cried. The helicopter quivered and lost altitude, but he regained control of it a moment later.

"True. Sorry," said Sunny sadly.

"If only I had stayed with Kit and met you at the Briny Beach!" said Quigley. "That's what I planned, but then a message came that Duncan and Isadora were in danger. I've been useless to them so far. I made a net to catch eagles, but I lost it in a storm and I had to make another one. I wish I had stayed and protected Violet."

"Did your best," said Sunny comfortingly.

"We'll stay up here and help you with the net," said Klaus. He called down to the Duchess and Dewey below to tell them of this change in plans.

"All right, we'll carry on the attack by sea while you attack from the air," said Dewey.

"Look over there! I see eagles in the air!" yelled the Duchess.

The helicopter charged ahead, leaving the bathysphere behind.

"Quigley, we got a report this morning that Olaf's submarine, the Carmelita, might be attacking your siblings too," said Klaus. "Though the source isn't completely reliable."

"Swatter," warned Sunny.

"That's right, Sunny," said Klaus. "Olaf once said the Carmelita has a giant fly-swatter for knocking his enemies out of the sky."

They saw an aerie of eagles swarming around the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home which housed Hector (the skittish V.F.D. agent from the village of V.F.D.) and Quigley's two siblings Duncan and Isadora. (An "aerie of eagles" is a phrase which here refers to a large collection of eagles, just as a "murder of crows" refers to a large collection of crows.)

There were two vessels below them. One was a large ship with William Shakespeare as the figurehead. The other was the octopus-shaped Carmelita, and Fernald the hook-handed man was standing on the head of the octopus, deploying the dreaded giant fly-swatter.

Quigley pointed to the ship, "That's the Prospero, a V.F.D. vessel. Kit was hoping it might be able to reach the fight in time."

"Let's try to net the eagles and drop them on top of Fernald and the Carmelita," said Klaus. "That will prevent him from using the swatter."

"Fiona?" asked Sunny.

"Either she's in this with Fernald or he's taken her prisoner," said Klaus grimly. "Either way, Fernald has got to be stopped."

With both Baudelaires helping with the net plus Quigley's expert flying, they managed to do exactly what they planned: they scooped up the eagles and dropped the net with them on top of Fernald and his submarine.

"Hey, what did you do that for?" Fernald yelled. "I was trying to help!" He ducked back into the hatch to avoid the squawking, clawing eagles. The many legs of the Carmelita were snared by the net so that it couldn't get away.

"Sure you were!" Quiqley yelled back. He brought the helicopter in for a landing on a large open spot on the deck of the Prospero, avoiding the many open crates scattered around the deck.

A moment later, the diving-suited figure of Duchess R. appeared over the side of the ship. Quigley, Klaus, and Sunny walked over to her.

"Good work, you three," she said heartily. "You've removed a pest that was interfering with our prey. It's too bad you had to harm the eagles, though."

"Prey?" asked Sunny.

"What are you talking about?" asked Quigley.

"Where's Dewey?" asked Klaus.

"He went down with his ship. I scuttled the bathyscape just now," said R. "Without ballast he won't be able to come up again."

"Why?" cried Sunny.

The Duchess gave a whistle and from behind the crates came a motley crew (which here means a gang of women in outlandish and colorful garments, waving cutlasses).

The three children were surrounded, and they abruptly realized that an enemy had been keeping very close indeed.

"I'm not really the Duchess of Winnipeg," said R. "Like my crewmates here who have captured the Prospero, I am a Female Finnish Pirate."


	6. Pirates

**Chapter 6**

"You're the traitor?" Klaus asked. "The Vermiform Food Denunciation said it was Kit Snicket."

"A waiter in an Italian restaurant tried to denounce me to Kit's brother this morning," said Duchess R. "Fortunately for me, there was another waiter in that same restaurant on the other side of the schism. He jostled the plate just before it was put on Mr. Snicket's table and caused the sausage 'R' to open up into a 'K' instead."

"How could you be a Female Finnish Pirate?" asked Quigley. "You've been a well-established member of the V.F.D. for years."

"The real Duchess is dead," said R. "We burned down her mansion a short time ago and stole her photographs and commonplace books. I sent a forged message to Mr. Snicket hoping to establish the Duchess was still alive. After I sent it, I realized I had made some mistakes the Duchess would never make, so I sent a second note to Kit Snicket disowning the first one. She fell for it."

"Impersonate?" asked Sunny, which meant, "How could you impersonate the Duchess when people knew what she looked like?"

"She's known to be a master of disguise," said R. "I pretended to be the Duchess disguised as someone else disguised as her, when I was actually someone else disguised as the Duchess disguised as someone else disguised as her. My real name is Raija."

"Confusing," said Sunny.

"Wearing a diving suit and helmet helped my impersonations a couple of times. I used it when I swam to the Queequeg near the Gorgonian Grotto, and I tricked Captain Widdershins and Phil away from the submarine."

"What did you do with them?" asked Klaus.

"The F.F.P. captured them when they got to the surface," said Raija. "We're holding them prisoner on the Prospero, along with the ship's regular captain and crew. We faked a message from Widdershins to Kit that lured her here. She tried to water-ski away when she saw it was a trap, but we caught her, too."

"Smoke. Mirrors," said Sunny.

"Yes, with all the smoke and mirrors in the V.F.D. they're pathetically easy to trick," said Raija. "My best trick was diving into the ocean near the Hotel Denouement on Tuesday afternoon, swimming down the secret tunnel into the pond, and getting the sugar bowl when it dropped into the pond. The stupid taxi-driver V.F.D. agent drove off with a fake substitute sugar bowl I gave him. The F.F.P. now has the real sugar bowl!"

"What's in the sugar bowl that you want?" asked Klaus. "I thought only the V.F.D. cared about it."

"Evidence of crimes by both sides of the schism that we can use to blackmail them," said Raija. "Also secrets of their research, such as the Medusoid Mycelium and the Question Mark monster. We're high-tech pirates."

Two pirates brought Fernald and Fiona off the Carmelita. Another group of pirates had managed to bring the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home down low enough to board it and take off Hector, Duncan, and Isadora. The new prisoners were herded in with the rest. Sunny and Klaus were glad to see the other two Quagmires again but dared not show it in front of their captors.

"Why were you attacking the self-sustaining hot-air mobile home with eagles?" asked Duncan.

"We were in an alliance of convenience with the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard," said R. "Now that they're dead, we'll just take the balloon vehicle for ourselves."

"We thought you were attacking us," Isadora said to Fernald. "I guess you were only trying to help. Sorry we dropped those heavy boxes on you."

"We sent a message for help when we first saw your submarine below us," Duncan said. "That was before the eagles arrived. How did you know where to find us?"

"I overhead the plans of those so-called justices when I their prisoner," said Fernald. "After Fiona and I stole Olaf's submarine we decided to find your balloon."

"You should have trusted us," said Fiona. "Aye! We just wanted to ask Hector a few questions about what happened to our mother."

Hector gave them a skittish look.

"I trusted you, Fiona," said Klaus. "And you broke my heart. I don't think you can ask us to trust you now."

"Enough chatter!" said Raija. "We're going to lock up you prisoners for the night. We'll ransom most of you back to the V.F.D. Klaus, by your own admission you killed our allies, the man with a beard and no hair and the woman with hair and no beard. At dawn tomorrow you shall walk the plank."

"No!" cried Sunny.

"Sunny, you are his accomplice but you have a choice," said Raija. "You are young enough to be retrained as a Female Finnish Pirate. You can either join us, or join your brother in his fate."

Sunny looked thoughtful. "Pirate," she finally said.

"Sunny!" Klaus cried.

"Lock them up in the high-security brig," said Raija. "Sunny will be locked up in a separate cabin to avoid reprisals."

As the only two remaining Baudelaires were dragged away from each other, Klaus called softly to her, "I don't blame you, Sunny. Every noble person has failed us. Why not join the pirates and save yourself?"

"Errol," said Sunny. 


	7. Phrases

**Chapter 7**

Raija and the other pirates held a feast to celebrate their victory in the huge and ornate Redburn Ballroom of the Prospero. Sunny was invited since she was a new recruit.

The pirates served lohilaatikko (salmon casserole), kaalikaaryleet (cabbage rolls stuffed with rice and meat), makkara (grilled sausages), and many other Finnish specialties made from food they had stolen from the Prospero's kitchens. They drank coffee, vodka, and glüg (a spicy drink made with wine, rum, and brandy).

Sunny was fascinated by the new recipes, but she avoided the alcohol and tried to keep alert for a chance to turn the tables on the pirates. When she had told her brother "Errol" she had meant, "I will try to find some dramatic, swashbuckling way to escape and rescue you."

"We need to teach you some pirate phrases," a pirate named Jenni told Sunny. "We don't use them often among ourselves but they're useful for impressing people who don't believe you're a real pirate otherwise."

"Shiver me timbers," said Sunny, showing off a phrase she already knew.

"That's a good one for expressing amazement," said Jenni. "Here's one you say to encourage your pirate comrades: 'Yo ho ho, me hearties'."

"Ho ho ho, my hearts," Sunny tried to repeat.

"No, it's 'Yo ho ho, me hearties'," the pirate replied. This time Sunny was able to repeat it correctly.

"You can also say 'Dead men tell no tales', which is great for scaring victims," said Raija, coming up with a box of short ropes. "But now I want to show you how to tie our trademark knot, the Devil's Tongue. It's an extremely strong, useful knot, especially for binding prisoners."

Sunny was quite familiar with the knot since Violet had often used them in their adventures. The Baudelaires had climbed up and down an elevator shaft using a rope of neckties fastened with these knots. But Sunny pretended she had never seen it before and she was deliberately clumsy as she tried to follow Raija's instructions.

"Need practice," she said.

"You can keep the box of ropes to practice on," said Raija, which was just what Sunny was hoping for.

The F.F.P. were feeling the effects of all the celebratory drinking they had done, and soon retired to bed. Sunny was locked in a room on the secure Black Guinea deck. Jenni was supposed to watch over her, but Jenni had imbibed too much glüg and she swiftly fell asleep.

Sunny rapidly tied the short ropes together with Devil's Tongue knots. Jenni had taken off her shoes; Sunni tied one of them to the end of the rope for a weight. She swung it up through a small open porthole and pulled herself up.

Sunny could just fit through the porthole. She braced herself there and looked around. The next porthole over was also open. She decided to risk the chance that it would lead to freedom. She swung the rope over and got the shoe to catch inside. She tied the slack end of the rope to the porthole hinge.

Even though Sunny was an excellent rope-climber, going hand-over hand from one porthole to the other was tricky, especially with the wind and the waves crashing against the hull of the ship. She was breathing hard when she pulled herself into the other cabin.

"Who's there?" came a wheezy voice in the room. It sounded like a man's voice, fortunately, not an F.F.P. member's voice.

"Who you?" Sunny called back quietly.

"Don't be afraid, it's only me, Captain Sham," said the voice.

Sunny gave a start. "Olaf?" she asked fearfully. 


	8. Question Mark

**Chapter 8**

The man turned on the light. Sunny saw an elderly man she had never seen before, dressed exactly as Count Olaf had been in his "Captain Sham" disguise, right down to the fake peg-leg.

"Who?" she asked.

"I'm Captain Julio Sham. That's actually the V.F.D. nickname for this sailor disguise, but I've used it so long that it's what I go by. I'm the Captain and owner of this ship. I dedicated her to my favorite author."

"Shakespeare?" Sunny asked, thinking of the name "Prospero" and the figurehead she had seen.

"No, Herman Melville. I originally named her the Pequod from _Moby Dick_, but the V.F.D. made me change it since they already had a submarine named the Queequeg. I kept all the rooms and decks named after Melville novels, and all the decks named after people and things in his novel _The Confidence Man_, anyway,"

"Pirates. Need help," said Sunny, feeling that the conversation had strayed from urgent matters.

"They took over my ship a few days ago and locked me in here," said Sham. "There's not much I can do to help."

Just then, Sunny heard a familiar hissing sound from a large cage in a corner of the room. She ran to the cage, calling, "Bela!"

"I've been keeping the Incredibly Deadly Viper here safe since she escaped from Bruce and Olaf," Sham explained.

Sunny was deep in a hissing conversation with the snake.

"You can communicate with Bela?" Sham asked. "Then there's a chance. Bela is trained in communication with other V.F.D. creatures, like crickets. She's the best telepathic snake the V.F.D. has ever had. She might be able to call on our dolphins, any salmon that might still be around, or even the Question Mark, though that's a terrible risk."

"Question Mark?" asked Sunny.

"It's an experimental mutant sea monster that Anwhistle Aquatics developed," said Sham. "It escaped and went out of control. But if anything can call it to help us, Bela can."

Sunny shuddered as she thought of the shadowy shape of the monster she had once seen outside the portal of the Queequeg. It was huge, much bigger than the submarine or even this ship. It would be powerful enough to help, if it could be controlled. She formed the image firmly in her mind and tried to send it to Bela.

Bela seemed to understand, and hissed an agreement. The snake concentrated for several minutes. It seemed like it wasn't working, until suddenly there was a loud sound of splashing from outside. Sunny saw an enormous tentacle reach up from the water and move past the porthole.

"This may not be good," said Captain Sham. "The Question Mark likes to crush things. It could crack this ship like an egg."

The sides of the Prospero began to creak as the tentacles exerted crushing pressure.

"Sunny, there's not much time," said Captain Sham. "I'll boost you up to the lifeboat overhead. If the ship cracks you can save some of us. Tell Bela to keep trying to get through to the Question Mark, but come on now."

Sunny grabbed on to the side of the lifeboat, and with the help of her teeth she managed to scramble inside. The tentacles of the Question Mark were gripping all over the ship.

Sunny was horrified at what was happening. She had done what she thought she had to, but everything was going wrong. She paddled the lifeboat around to the part of the ship where her brother and friends were being held.

The metal hull of the Prospero was cracking and buckling now. The area around the porthole to the Black Guinea prison deck tore open; the Quagmires and Klaus looked out.

"Jump!" Sunny called. The young prisoners leaped out of the ship into the water near the lifeboat and pulled themselves into it.

"Others?" Sunny asked them,

"In other cells," said Klaus miserably.

The Question Mark pulled the ship down. It cracked more but nobody else got out. The Baudelaires and the Quagmires rowed back to prevent being sucked down with it. The Deus Ex Machina, along with the Carmelita, was tethered to the Prospero and went down with it.

"The Female Finnish Pirates are gone," said Quigley.

"Hector too," said Isadora.

"Captain Sham. Bela," said Sunny.

"Captain Widdershins and Kit," said Duncan,

"Fernald and Fiona," said Klaus.

"Saved you," said Sunny defensively.

"At such a high price," said Klaus.

The Baudelaires silently considered all those that had died in the course of their series of unfortunate events. Enemies had died: Dr. Orwell, the person of indeterminate gender, the bald-headed man who called himself Flacutono, Madame Lulu, Count Olaf, and now the Female Finnish Pirates. So had many on their side had died also: their parents, Uncle Monty, Aunt Josephine, Violet, Dewey Denouement, and now their friends and allies on the Prospero.

"I'm through being a nemesis," said Klaus. "It isn't worth it."

"Me too," said Sunny.

The lifeboat drifted in the ocean, and at this point I have lost track of the history of the Baudelaires. If anyone has seen them, please communicate with my publishers so that I can continue their story.

With all due respect,  
Lemony Snicket 


End file.
